Chapter XXVI: Amicus Dei

I

_Through the April meadows ambling
Where the new born lambs are gamb'ling
Cometh May and vanisheth;--
Cometh lovely June a-rambling;--
July follows out of breath
Scattering the playful swallows;
On her heels a Shepherd follows,
All dolled up like Old Man Death._

II

_While he capers, pipes, and prances,
Meadows wither where he dances;
Suddenly the sunshine ends!
Shrinking from his grinning glances,
Every blossom wilts and bends.
Spectral forests rise and tower,
Bursting into crimson flower,
And an iron rain descends._

III

_Shepherd, Shepherd, lithely whirling,
To your screaming pipes a-skirling,_
_Tell me why you blithely dance?
But the shrilling tempest, hurling
Shrivelled blossoms of Romance,
Answered: "Help! For Christ is dying!"
And I heard the pipes replying:
"Let the Friend of God advance!"_

IV

Prince of the Vanguard, armed from head to heel,
And reassuring God amid your bayonets
Where the Imperial standard frets
And the sun sets
Across five million marching acolytes in steel,
Red looms a ruined world against the West,
Red lie its dead beneath your sombre crest,
And redly drips your sword
And the lances of your horde
Where all things died, the loveliest and best.
In this dead land there stirs no pulse, no breath,
For, where you ride, on your right hand rides Death.

V

God's ally, self-ordained to wield His rod,
Trampling His will into the heretics,
Leveling their shrines to heaps of bricks,
How the red stain sticks
To the ten million pair of boots that plod!
Quickly on Him your Iron Cross bestow
That He may wash you whiter than the snow.

VI

Prince of the Vanguard, heed no bleeding clod
Left on the reeking sod among your myrmidons
Where the anathema of your Huns
Hurled from iron guns
Dashes a million frightened souls to God!
Bright shines the promise of the Prince of Peace:
"Sheer you My sheep; garner their fleece,"--
Or was it "feed" He said?
Too late! His sheep are dead.
All things must die, and even Death shall cease.
Then the Almighty on His throne may nod
Unvexed by martyrs importuning God.

THE END

Transcriber Notes:

Passages in italics were indicated by _underscores_.

Small caps were replaced with ALL CAPS.

Throughout the dialogues, there were words used to mimic accents of the speakers. Those words were retained as-is.

The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate. Thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations, and the order of illustrations may not be the same in the List of Illustrations and in the book.

Errors in punctuations and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected unless otherwise noted.

On page 5, "aid" was replaced with "aide".

On page 41, "night table" was replaced with "night-table".

On page 63, a period was added after "studying her face".

On page 63, a period was added after "roots of her hair".

On page 76, a period was added after "he said".

On page 78, "satched" was replaced with "satchel".

On page 104, "whisperd" was replaced with "whispered".

On page 111, two periods were replaced with one.

On page 131, a quotation mark was added after "9--18--4--19.".

On page 160, "had came" was replaced with "had come".

On page 182, a period was added after "courage nor intellect".

On page 205, a period was added after "her chin meditatively".

On page 274, a quotation mark was added after "I remember."